MURRIETA: Panel discusses college, interchange

A construction contract for the long-awaited French Valley
Parkway-Interstate 15 interchange could be awarded by the end of
the month, and work could begin as soon as the fall.

The project will entail building an interchange north of
Winchester Road in Temecula and a new road off that interchange,
called French Valley Parkway, that will funnel motorists west
toward Jefferson Avenue. The nearly $200 million project also will
feature a bridge over the freeway that will connect the new road
with Ynez Road, and new lanes on both sides of the freeway for
north/south travel.

The project is designed to relieve congestion at the Winchester
interchange, where traffic waiting to exit I-15 typically backs up
onto the freeway.

"I think both councils are going to see a flurry of activity as
we dot i's and cross t's" to get the project off the ground, said
Temecula Public Works Director Greg Butler. "There's a few
stumbling blocks that could pop up, but we're all doing our best to
look out into the horizon and see what they are."

Butler's update came at the tail end of a Wednesday morning
meeting at Murrieta City Hall of the Twin Cities Committee, which
is composed of City Council members from Murrieta and Temecula.

Committee members also focused on efforts to attract a college
campus to either city and on coordinating a plan to redevelop
Jefferson Avenue, which extends from Rancho California Road in
Temecula to just past the Civic Center in Murrieta.

"I think there's a lot of potential out here for the two cities
to work together," said Murrieta Councilman Rick Gibbs, who led the
meeting. "Every place we go to do a little bit of marketing, it's
nice to be pitching the two cities together ---- (there is)
strength in numbers."

The French Valley Parkway interchange is of mutual interest to
the two cities because it would be constructed right at the
Murrieta-Temecula border.

Also of equal interest is the need to bring a four-year
university, probably a California State University campus, to the
region.

Although Murrieta and Temecula previously have competed to draw
businesses to their cities, leaders from both cities said during
Wednesday's meeting that the future for each lies in the success of
its closest neighbor. To that end, officials from both cities are
planning to draft a resolution to confirm their mutual cooperation
and support as each pursues opportunities to entice a college to
build a campus here.

Murrieta may be the closest to securing such an agreement. Cityleaders have been helping to mediate a land conservation agreementbetween Anheuser-Busch, which has expressed interest incontributing as much as 200 acres it owns just outside the city forthe construction of a college campus, and the Western RiversideRegional Conservation Authority, which governs land conservationefforts.

"I've got two lovely daughters in a private university, and the
response is, 'Why do we want to come home to Murrieta? There's
nothing going on there,'" Murrieta Councilwoman Kelly Bennett said.
"I would like to be able to respond that there's going to be a
whole lot going on here, but there's a huge break in that link
there. We'll never get our kids back if we keep shipping them out
and exporting them" to four-year universities.